


You’re Worth It

by thenakednymph



Series: Brawler [2]
Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: BAMF Lance (Voltron), Hurt/Comfort, I literally wrote this in one sitting after a creative block, M/M, Pain, Protective Lance, apparently I really like brawler Lance???, lance is a mess, so have more from that universe
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-03-27
Updated: 2019-05-10
Packaged: 2019-12-18 15:33:54
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 3
Words: 7,176
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18252728
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thenakednymph/pseuds/thenakednymph
Summary: A Galran infiltration unit tries to take Keith while he’s in a healing pod. Lance is the only thing standing between them. And he fights dirty.~More Brawler universe Lance





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Edit: Oh hey, now with fewer spelling errors and awkward wording. The beginning is still clunky but I’m working on it.

Lance wipes the blood from his chin with the back of his hand, swaying on his feet. His muscles are burning and his lungs ache with every jagged breath but he refuses to back down.

“You can’t have him.” He plants himself squarely between the Galra and the pod Keith is resting inside at his back.

“He is ours,” the Galra snarls and Lance seethes.

“You can’t have him!” He throws himself at the soldier, fighting with all he has and he fights dirty. He may never have taken to the close combat training the way the others did but Lance is the youngest in his family and it had taught him to fight dirty.

He knows the Galra is stronger and faster than him and has claws and teeth but that doesn’t stop Lance from aiming for tender spots and giving as good as he gets.

He manages to drag the Galra to the floor after exchanging blows, tripping him up with the sleeves of his jacket, grappling with the man before he manages to drive an elbow down onto one of his ears and the Galra screams.

The fight is ugly and brutal, Lance finally sinking his teeth into the Galra’s unprotected throat out of desperation. Claws rake at his hair and Lance bites harder, blood gushing into his mouth as the soldier screams and gurgles beneath him. Lance tries not to be sick as he digs his fingers into the man’s eyes, struggling to blindly pin one of his arms as he forces his jaws together. He feels the crunch of windpipe between his teeth and twists.

Jerking his head back, Lance tears out the Galra’s throat, arterial spray covering his face as the soldier flails.

Lance scrambles backwards as the hands grappling for him suddenly vanish to clutch desperately at the wound. Lance spits and gags, blood and flesh spilling out of his mouth and he vomits, eyes squeezed shut as he listens to the Galra bleed out next to him, drowning in his own blood.

Lance cries, saliva spilling from his mouth in bloody strings as he gags, stomach heaving. He sniffles and scoots away as silence falls, not looking at the corpse. Adrenaline leaves him shivering, skin clammy.

His eyes lift to find Keith, still resting serenely in the pod, dead to the world and the violence mere feet away.

Lance lumbers to his feet, cradling his arm to his stomach where it throbs, the bones in his wrist grinding painfully and he whimpers. He retrieves the fallen blaster he hadn’t been able to get to and locks the door of the pod room, little wet patters following him across the floor.

His head throbs where the Galra cracked it against the ground and he can feel the tickle of blood running under his hair from the gashes of the man’s claws.

Lance sniffs again, wiping at the blood running under his nose, idly wondering if it’s his or the soldier’s and sways on his feet, dizzy and nauseous.

He shuffles to Keith’s pod and drops onto the stairs as the room spins, resting his back against it. The gun is cradled in Lance’s good hand as he watches the door, ready to take out the next thing to come through it. Every part of him throbs, the hits the soldier managed to land all screaming at him. Lance is reminded of the time he went snowboarding with his friends and wound up with a dislocated shoulder and bruised ribs when he’d taken a bad fall. This feels about the same.

The room is silent save for his labored breathing and the soft whirring of the Altean technology and for a moment Lance thinks maybe everything is okay. Then the power cuts out.

Lance’s eyes fly up to the pod on reflex, ready to drag Keith out if he has to, but some emergency protocol must kick in because the pod opens, dumping Keith out unceremoniously.

Lance barely manages to catch him before Keith can bludgeon himself on the stairs. He lets out a scream at the strain on his wrist as Keith’s deadweight hits him full force, driving him back into the stairs and forcing the breath from him.

Still pinned, in shock, and buried under seven different kinds of pain it takes Lance a moment to collect himself enough to think straight.

It takes some maneuvering but he manages to pull Keith against him in the dark, draping one arm over his shoulder and chest. Blood smears across the white material of his suit. Lance retrieves the fallen gun, propping it against his knee and watches the door, idly counting the breaths that ghost against the side of his throat.

Keith begins to stir a few minutes later, a number of tremors wracking his body as he comes awake, breath changing.

“‘s’okay,” Lance slurs, afraid Keith is going to panic. His lips are throbbing, the bottom one swollen and pulling across his teeth strangely, marring the words.

Keith makes a little noise and Lance can only imagine what coming out of an emergency release from the cryopods must be like only to wake up in the dark.

“Safe,” he whispers, pressing his arm across Keith’s chest in an approximation of a hug, careful of his broken wrist. “‘s’okay.”

Lance is abruptly grateful for the dark so Keith can’t see him or the dead soldier, or all the blood. He must look a right mess and he doesn’t much want to look at the corpse either. He carefully tips his cheek against Keith’s hair before pulling away.

Keith groans and shifts about, irritating the bruises Lance is covered in again, the added weight making the stairs dig into his back and he bites his tongue to keep from whining.

“Lance?”

“Shh,” Lance hushes when he can catch his breath.

Keith begins to come a little more awake. “What happened?” He winces, shifting against Lance’s ribs and Lance is abruptly aware that while not broken they hurt like hell.

“‘s’okay,” he says again and Keith settles, still half asleep against his chest. “Back to sleep.” He says each word slowly, trying to enunciate them so Keith can understand.

“Hurts,” Keith mumbles, pressing his forehead to Lance’s neck as if to alleviate the rapidly forming migraine.

“Why are you wet?” he grumbles, beginning to pull away as the lights flicker and Lance hears someone scrape at the doors. His arm with the gun snaps up and he goes rigid, arms and legs shifting to bracket and protect Keith with what energy he has left.

He can feel Keith looking around, tensing, feels him notice the blood and the body on the floor a few feet away. Lance doesn't take his eyes off the door. His vision is muddy and unfocused but he’ll be damned if he lets anything get to Keith.

The doors are wrenched open and Hunk shoulders his way inside, forcing them apart with Shiro’s help.

Lance sags at the sight of them, tears of relief flooding his eyes as the gun clatters to the floor.

“Oh thank god,” he breathes, head tipping back against the edge of the pod as he cries.

“Lance?” Keith is sitting up, turning to look at him and Lance watches the horror play across his face from somewhere distant.

His limbs fall away from Keith, leaded and numb. There’s blood smeared on his cheek and forehead from where he’d been resting against Lance and Lance feels the stupid urge to apologize.

Hunk is ashen, staring at the havoc Lance had unleashed, blood already drying across the floor. Lance can feel it crack and pull across his face and he winces.

“...sorry.”

Shiro is the first to recover, stepping around the body in the middle of the room to get to Keith and Lance. He tucks a gentle hand under Keith’s arm, pulling him to his feet and off of Lance who flinches and whines at the shift in pressure, twisting to alleviate the pain. It doesn’t work,

“Hunk, can you take Keith to the medbay?”

Keith is staring numbly at Lance. He looks like one big bruise, blood coating his face and staining his shirt a uniform brown. It’s dripping from his hair and trailing across the room.

Keith doesn’t realize how much of that blood he’s covered in too.

“I’m not hurt,” Keith says and his voice sounds distant in his ears.

Hunk visibly gathers himself and steps up to take Keith as Shiro passes him over, afraid he’ll fall.

Keith’s eyes never leave Lance.

“I’m not hurt,” Keith says again, fingers curling around Hunk’s arm.

“You’re covered in blood,” Hunk rasps.

Keith finally drags his eyes away as Shiro kneels down next to Lance.

“I don’t think it’s mine.” The words come out thick and strange and his eyes drift back to Lance.

“Hey kiddo,” Shiro says softly and Lance’s head lolls towards him. “How you feeling?”

Lance raises a shaking hand, giving Shiro a wobbly thumbs up. “Sunny side,” he slurs and Shiro smiles.

“Come on, let's get you up.”

Shiro pulls Lance to his feet as carefully as he can, Lance favoring his right leg as Shiro pulls his good arm over his shoulder.

The four of them make their way slowly to the door, Lance’s eyes catching on the corpse and Shiro pauses, his eyes following Lance’s, feeling the tremor that ripples through him.

“Tried to take Keith,” he mumbles, the words slurred and broken.

“I know,” Shiro says and his voice is soft. “You did good,” he whispers and Lance cries, shuddering and pressing closer to the warmth of his side.

Shiro hugs him gently, unsure of how badly hurt he is.

He turns his head to whisper in Lance’s ear. “You did good.”

~

When they come stumbling into the medbay Allura is furious. She yells at them about reckless behavior as Shiro helps Lance onto a table. Lance is more interested in cataloguing his various injuries than her lecture and only half listens, knowing she’s more afraid than angry.

Coran informs them the castle is on emergency power only and the pods are out of commission.

Hunk slips from the room at that and returns a moment later with a bag of ice, gesturing wordlessly to Lance’s blackened eyes, guiding his hand gently until it’s pressed over the worst of the bruising.

Pidge tugs on a pair of gloves and begins to cut away Lance’s ruined shirt, pulling it from him in pieces, revealing more and more damaged skin until even Allura is silent.

Keith looks between all of them, his legs finally solidified beneath him.

“What happened?”

“Galran infiltration unit,” Shiro explains, eyes still on Lance. It’s hard to look away.

He tells Keith about everything that’s happened since their last mission and Keith going into the pod. Keith listens but his eyes are on Pidge as they pass a bowl to Hunk who fills it with water and brings over a wet cloth, helping Pidge to wash away the worst of the blood Lance is coated in, all of which he endures in silence.

Blood continues to patter onto Lance’s jeans from his split lip, dribbling from his chin. Pidge tries to get Lance to hold a bit of gauze over the wound but Lance flinches when their fingers try to lift his broken wrist and they back off, eyes warm with apology. Lance tries to smile, only irritating the injury further.

Coran starts talking about castle repairs and Keith steps closer, Lance tilting his head to watch him as he comes to a stop at his side, conversation continuing to drift around them.

“Why would you do that?” His voice is low, barely there among the other threads but it’s the one Lance tugs on.

He peeks at Keith from behind the ice pack. His other eye is swollen nearly shut, a mottled purple. What sliver of his cornea Keith can see is angry and bloodshot, making his own eyes water in sympathy.

Lance’s lips are swollen and split, blood dribbling down his chin again as he tries to speak. The words are slow and meticulously formed, the swelling distorting them and Keith winces.

“Because- you’re my- family.” Lance swallows thickly, air hissing past his teeth and it sounds like there’s blood in his mouth. “And they can’t have you.”

Lance is shrouded in pain, the words weak with it but under it all is a thread of the fierce determination he’d used to protect Keith. Twice now his brain helpfully notes and it makes Keith shiver.

Keith curls his arms across his waist, still barely believing the beating Lance took to protect him. And that it wasn’t a fluke.

Keith’s eyes are inexplicably drawn to the split and swollen knuckles of both Lance’s hands, the careful way he’s cradling his wrist to his stomach, swollen and angry.

There’s a mosaic of morbidly blooming bruises across his ribs, each one angrier than the last, all of them turning the same dark purple of high impact and Keith winces.

“I’m not…” He’s going to say worth it but Lance’s body is a stark contrast to that statement and Keith can’t bring himself to contradict it. Because apparently Lance thinks he is and that makes Keith's stomach churn as he pulls his arms across his chest.

“You are lucky you didn’t lose any teeth,” Allura snaps, grabbing his chin and yanking Lance’s head around, startling them both as she starts treating his lip with some kind of laser. Lance flinches, going rigid in her grip with a whine, eyes squeezed shut, afraid to move and make it worse.

Her fingers are pressed into an angry red and purple spot along Lance’s jaw and Keith is moving before he realizes it.

“Easy.” He reaches for the device, taking it from her hand, gently hip-checking her to the side and stepping into her space. She’s too startled to protest.

“He’s been through enough,” Keith scolds softly. “Don’t make it any worse.” He steps into the spot between Lance’s knees she’d just been occupying and begins to treat the injury himself.

He tips Lance’s chin up gently with a knuckle, keeping it there to steady him as he activates the laser.

There’s a look of intense concentration on his face but his fingers are gentle and Lance slowly relaxes again, body sagging.

Allura shoots Shiro a look, not really sure what to do but he waves her off, watching the exchange carefully.

Lance relaxes into the gentle touch as Keith slowly waves the laser back and forth, reducing the swelling and with it the pain. Lance’s eyes drift shut and he lets out a sigh, leaning into Keith’s fingers.

Without the pods it will be a slow process to bring Lance back to full strength but Keith is willing to stand there all night if he has to. He owes Lance that much.

“I think he’s got it Princess,” Shiro says softly. “But I could use some help in the pod room. There’s...a bit of a mess.”

Lance’s eyes open and he ducks his head, cheeks coloring in shame as his stomach turns over. He can still taste the blood in his mouth and shivers at the memory of what he’d done.

Keith’s hand under his chin gives way to let Lance duck his head but his thumb strokes gently over the skin, trying to soothe. When Lance looks up he sees nothing but gratitude in Keith’s eyes instead of fear or disgust and it helps him lift his head again, holding it a little higher.

Something like pride flickers in Keith’s gaze and he grips Lance’s chin a fraction tighter for just a moment.

“And I could use some help with repairs if you’re both feeling up for it,” Coran asks, eyes on Pidge and Hunk who both look ashen. His voice is uncharacteristically soft and he touches Lance’s knee as he passes, one of the only parts of him it seems safe to touch.

Lance tries to smile and this time it doesn’t hurt.

Pidge and Hunk trail from the room after him, Allura and Shiro splitting off to deal with the corpse, leaving Keith to work in silence.

It’s a slow process, each pass of the laser encouraging the wound to heal, making it itch. It takes a number of minutes for the swelling to go down and the split to stitch itself back together.

When the split in Lance’s lip is fully healed he moves on to Lance’s eye. Both are bruised but the left is swollen nearly shut and is where Keith starts.

Lance closes his eyes, watching the light pass back and forth from behind his eyelid, the skin prickling strangely under the beam. He counts the passes at first but stops a little after ninety.

He waits until Keith is done with both eyes before speaking. At least an hour has passed.

“You are you know?” Lance peeks up at Keith who frowns but doesn’t shift his focus from where he’s moved on to Lance’s bruised jaw.

“What?”

Lance shifts uncomfortably, wincing when his injuries pull. Keith gives him a moment to readjust before getting back to work.

“Before,” Lance elaborates. “You were gonna say you’re not worth it.” Keith’s eyes flicker to his briefly but don’t stick. “You are.”

Keith doesn’t answer him but Lance hadn’t really been expecting him to and instead lets the silence fade back in. He already feels better.

“Thank you,” Keith finally says. “For what you did. You didn’t have to…” He doesn’t know how to finish the sentence. Lance didn’t have to what? Nearly get beaten within in an inch of his life? Have to fight so hard to protect Keith? Didn’t have to nearly die for him in a fist fight with a Galra in nothing but his jeans and jacket?

Keith swallows the cocktail of emotions he’s feeling and focuses on healing the injuries one at a time.

Lance speaks with that same soft conviction from before, the sound of it prickling over Keith’s spine in a way that’s not entirely unpleasant.

“Yes I did.”

Keith purses his lips but moves on to the bruises marring Lance’s chest. Lance catches his wrist in his bruised hand before he can start, drawing Keith’s eyes up.

“I can take it from here,” he says softly, grinning crookedly. “You’re gonna be here all night otherwise,” he teases, trying to draw a smile from the serious look on Keith’s face.

Keith gently reaches up and takes Lance’s hand, setting it back in his lap without looking away.

“If that’s what it takes.” He holds Lance’s gaze for a moment longer than he needs to and then turns back to the bruise and Lance flushes, feeling oddly doted on.

Keith counts the racing beats of his heart for a moment before speaking again, eyes on the laser as it moves back and forth, slowly soothing away the damage.

“You’re worth it too.”


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Direct continuation of the previous chapter. Thanks EmpressAelin for the beta!

“Will you at least come up here?” Lance pats the table next to him as Keith works on healing the damage to his ribs.

“You just got out of a pod,” he scolds. “I know you’re tired and your feet are probably hurting. You’ve been standing there for over an hour.”

“I’m fine.”

Lance tugs on Keith’s fingers, getting his attention.

“That’s not what I asked.”

Keith finally relents and hops up onto the table, pulling Lance’s arm over his shoulder so it’ll stop obscuring the bruise he’s working on.

“Happy now?” Keith mutters, his cheeks flushed, intensely focused on his work.

Lance hums thoughtfully for a moment. “Better. But I’d be happier if you’d eat something.”

“Later,” Keith reasons. “I want to make sure you’re okay first.” Lance rolls his eyes, not that Keith can see it.

“Fine. But then food. And you need a nap.”

“And you need a shower,” Keith throws back, scowling up at him.

Lance tips his head because Keith has a point. He doesn’t know what he looks like but he knows what he _feels_ like and it’s not fun. He’s one big ball of pain and in spite of Pidge and Hunk’s attempts to wash away the blood, his skin still pulls tightly in places. What he can see of himself is streaked in watery red.

“Fair.” He glances at Keith. “I look as bad as I feel?”

Keith looks at him from under his eyebrows, something flickering across his face too quickly for Lance to catch.

“Probably,” he admits softly. “You look terrible.”

“Mmm, feel pretty terrible too.” He tries to smile. “The room spinning or is that just me?” he jokes but Keith lifts his head. His expression is intense and Lance flushes as Keith lifts his chin, turning Lance’s head back and forth, studying his eyes in the light.

Lance has never been the subject of that much scrutiny before, least of all from Keith and he’s both enjoying the attention and mortified by it, wanting to curl into himself and hide.

“I think you have a concussion.”

“That would explain the pounding headache.”

Keith scowls, hopping down from the table and out from under Lance’s arm, startling him.

“Damn it Lance.” He scrambles across the room looking for pain meds and grabbing a water pouch from the emergency supplies.

“I’m sorry, I’m such an ass. I don’t _think._ ” He shoves the medication and water into Lance’s hand and Lance fumbles to hold them with his one good hand.

“Can you?” He grins, holding the pouch back out to Keith. “I’m still a little lame on one side.”

Keith scrambles to punch the straw into the pouch, squeezing it too hard and water runs over his fingers making him blush.

“Sorry, I’ll fix your hand next.” Lance throws a couple pills in his mouth and washes them down, handing the pouch back to Keith, letting their fingers brush.

“You’re doing fine,” he reassures and Keith ducks his head with a frown, tucking his hair back. It takes him a moment to settle on the table again, Lance turning to gently put his wrist in Keith’s lap but the movement reminds him how bruised his hip is. And the throbbing in his knee.

Keith freezes. “What? What did I do?”

Lance shakes his head with a wince. “Nothing. Forgot my hip was bruised.” He makes a face, trying to find a more comfortable sitting position. “And that my knee was busted.”

Keith slips off the table with a surly look, probing gently at Lance’s knee, making him hiss.

“Yeah that’s the one,” he groans, flinching back.

Keith frowns and starts unlacing Lance’s shoes, tucking them under the table.

“Pants,” he orders, too uncomfortable to say the full sentence.

Lance freezes. “What?”

Keith tugs on the hem of Lance’s jeans. “Pants,” he reiterates. “I can’t fix it if I can’t see it.”

Lance flushes. “Oh. Right.”

It takes some doing but together they manage to tug off Lance’s bloodied jeans with minimal pain inflicted though they’re both bright red by the end.

Keith tugs over a chair, pulling Lance’s foot into his lap and spends the next hour slowly bringing the swelling down and healing the damage to his knee.

A thousand thoughts and questions are burning in Keith’s brain, tripping over themselves and clamoring for attention, desperate to fill the silence and avoid thinking about Lance sitting in front of him, mostly naked.

“How did you learn to fight like that?” He glances up, trying to gauge Lance’s reaction, afraid he’s pushing for something Lance doesn’t want to talk about.

“I know we talked about it a little bit before but that can’t all just be instinct. You had to have learned it somewhere.”

Lance sighs, Keith flexing his knee experimentally, making Lance wince. It still aches but the worst of the pain is gone. At least he won’t be limping anymore.

“So where we were living there was kind of a kidnapping scare for a while?” Lance says, scratching at the back of his neck. “Kids were disappearing and everyone was really paranoid. Because of that my dad raised us to fight dirty while we were play fighting.”

Keith looks up at him, a furrow between his brows, the device in his hand falling still.

“Play fighting?”

“Yeah, it’s a sibling thing. I don’t know, kids are weird.” He waves a hand as if to brush aside the explanation as unnecessary. “You beat the shit out of each other but heaven help anyone who so much as breathes wrong in the direction of one of your siblings. We were not afraid to gang up on someone if they were harassing one of the others.” He smiles wryly. “We were the only ones allowed to be mean to one another.

“But anyway, instead of teaching us not to bite or claw or pull hair, to make it a clean fight, that’s exactly what we were encouraged to do.

Dad taught us how to claw our way free if anyone ever picked us up and threw us over their shoulder, to go for the eyes, the throat, things like that. The vulnerable spots. To kick and scratch and bite, whatever it took to get away.” He snorts.

“There was this one time when I was like, thirteen and we were swimming? This other kid tried to pick me up and dunk me and I broke his nose.” Lance laughs at Keith’s expression as much as the memory.

“I think he was trying to flirt with me? But it was just a knee-jerk reaction. He snuck up behind me and grabbed me so I drove my elbow into his face.”

“And you broke his nose?” Keith’s eyes are wide.

“It was a reflex!” Lance defends, going a little pink. They both dissolve into giggles, Keith lifting Lance’s foot to extend his leg experimentally, pleased when Lance doesn't flinch this time.

Lance adjusts his weight on the table, voice going somber.

“When I got older I was in a bar fight. Some guy had assaulted one of my friends and I was a little drunk. I remember bits and pieces but most of it is a blur. Getting my hands on the guy, my fingers in his hair as I cracked his skull off the ground.” His eyes flick to Keith and he chews on his lip, a worried crease between his brows before he looks away again.

“I wasn’t gonna stop.” He takes a deep breath before continuing. “Hunk had to pull me off him and drag me outside before somebody called the cops.” Lance’s hands flex at his sides. “I nearly put him in the hospital.” He swallows dryly, throat clicking. “And I would have.” His expression wavers and he tries to force a smile.

“Lemme tell ya, realizing you’re capable of murder sucks.

“I spent the rest of that night crying all over Hunk.” Lance shakes his head. “I’ve never lost my temper like that.

“Not before and not since, though I’ve come close a couple of times.” He takes a deep breath, letting out a breath. “Dad wanted to make sure we could fight to protect ourselves and each other but what happened in the bar was not what he had in mind.” He hunches his shoulders and glances around the room. “Pretty sure this wasn’t either.” A wry smile tries to pull across Lance’s mouth but the thread snaps and it falls.

“He just wanted to make sure we’d be able to fight off any potential kidnappers. I don’t think he ever expected us to have to put it into practice. Not like this.” Lance shakes his head.

Keith touches his hand, making him look at him. “Remind me to thank him.” He tries to smile as if that’s somehow enough to chase away whatever Lance is feeling. “You’ve saved my life twice now because of that. I don’t think anyone else could have.”

Lance snorts. “If it had been anyone else they wouldn’t have gotten their ass handed to them.”

Keith is quiet, coaxing Lance into lying down so Keith can work on the bruises to his back and the one on his hip. He moves stiffly, trying to keep his weight off his busted wrist.

Keith waits patiently as Lance settles onto the cold metal table, wishing he’d thought to put something down first.

“If it had been anyone else but you in the room I’d probably be halfway to Zarkon by now.” Keith means it as a passing comment but it doesn’t feel that way even as he says it. He fiddles with the device, sitting on the edge of the table and beginning to work on the deep bruises over Lance’s kidneys.

“Shiro can hold his own and the Alteans have an obvious strength advantage,” Keith goes on, more to himself than Lance.

“But if it had been Pidge or Hunk…” He trails off, not liking where that train of thought is leading, but it’s one he can’t stop.

Lance frowns, not liking it either. He turns his head, looking in Keith’s direction, head pillowed on his arms, careful of his wrist.

“What are you saying?”

Keith puts down the laser to meet Lance’s eyes with his full attention. “I’m saying...I think you need to teach them.”

Lance balks, half sitting up and rolling away from Keith in the process.

“No. No way.”

“Lance-”

“No!” He shifts away from Keith and sits up as if to distance himself from the very idea. “I am not doing that to them.” He swings his legs off the table on the other side, pacing across the room. He purses his lips and whirls on Keith.

“Do you think I want someone like Pidge who’s so damn smart they forget it’s okay to be soft sometimes thinking like I do? Or Hunk?” He gestures wildly, continuing to pace. “He cares about people too much to hurt them like that.”

Keith steps around the table.

“That’s why they need to,” he reasons, voice unbearably patient.

Lance bares his teeth and scowls as Keith steps closer. “No.”

“If the situation had been reversed,” Keith says softly, reaching for Lance’s arm to keep him from walking away. “Hunk or Pidge would be dead. Is that what you want?” He searches Lance’s face, knowing it isn’t. “I’m all for fighting fair but the Galra don’t. We have to be able to meet them on their own level.”

“You mean on a _baser_ level.” There’s something like self-loathing in Lance’s voice and he squeezes his eyes shut. His arm flexes under Keith’s hand but he doesn’t pull away.

“It’s not like what you do,” he manages, the words choked. “It’s not clean or efficient. It’s about being able to take a hit and give one back in turn.” He finally opens his eyes.

“It’s about inflicting as much damage as possible until the other person is dead or debilitated. There’s so much blood,” he whispers, eyes pleading.

“It’s about hurting them.” He shakes his head. “There’s no finesse to it, just blood.” He squeezes his eyes shut, still seeing the soldier he’d killed, knowing it’ll haunt him for months, maybe years. “I don’t _want_ that for them.”

His shoulders are rigid and tense and then they’re sagging and when he opens his eyes they’re sad and hurt.

“Do you know what it does to me?” he whispers, his arm limp under Keith’s hand. “To hurt people like that? To know I’m capable of it?” His voice trembles. “It makes me feel ugly. Inhuman. Sick with rage.” His stomach turns as he says it and images of the dead soldier flash behind his eyes again. He has to swallow thickly to keep from being sick and tastes blood, not sure if it’s phantom, his, or the dead soldier’s.

“I don’t want that for them. For anyone.” Lance’s horrified to find his eyes are wet. “I don’t want to hurt anyone.” He looks defeated, standing there with his shoulders bowed and his head down, something old crawling up out of him in the moment of vulnerability.

“I just wanted to be a pilot.” Lance presses his fingers into his eyes, trying to stop the tears. He’s so tired of crying.

Keith touches his wrist, gently pulling Lance’s hand away and Lance lets him, looking at Keith through wet eyes.

“I know.” His fingers tangle with Lance’s, trying to comfort. “Just think about it okay?” He squeezes Lance’s hands. “You don’t have to decide now. But I’d rather have them prepared with the knowledge and hope one day they never have to use it, than face the day where it could have saved their lives and didn’t. I want them to be safe as much as you do.

“Now will you get back on the table? Your wrist is still broken.”


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey look, Soft.

Hours later Keith is still working on Lance but they’re almost done.

“Tell me if any of this hurts.” Keith starts pressing on the shadows of the injuries, finding what still needs more attention. The worst of the damage is gone but Lance had insisted he only needed as much healing as would get him functional again. Keith wants to make sure he isn’t hurting period.

And because he isn’t ready to stop touching Lance. Not that he knows why. He’s just hesitant to let him go.

“Why? You gonna kiss it better?” Lance teases. Keith presses gently at the darkness under Lance’s eyes, fingers stilling as he considers it.

“Only if you want me to.”

Keith certainly wants to.

Lance flushes and ducks his head, not answering and Keith studies the bruises.

He presses the darkest spot under Lance’s left eye where the worst of the swelling was, making him flinch.

“Okay, that one hurt,” Lance admits.

“You didn’t give me an answer.” Keith’s thumb sweeps over the bruise in apology before he reaches for the laser.

“Do you want me to kiss it better?” He hopes he doesn’t sound as breathless as he feels.

Lance doesn’t know how Keith can make asking something so ridiculous sound so serious. It makes his heart race.

“Maybe,” he mutters, cheeks red.

“That’s not a yes.”

“It’s not a no,” Lance shoots back with a scowl.

Keith tries not to find the pout endearing. Or the way Lance is blushing.

He sets the laser carefully back on the table, cradling Lance’s face in his hands as he stares at the shadows under his eyes.

They stare at each other for a moment, hearts racing before Keith very gently presses his lips to the bruise. He feels the stutter of Lance’s breath against his cheek and the side of his neck, goosebumps rippling over his skin in their wake, the fluttering of Lance’s lashes against his lips making his breath catch.

He lets the kiss linger before pulling back.

Lance is bright red, cheeks warm under Keith’s hands but there’s something like hunger in his eyes when he glances up, almost shyly.

His fingers twist in his lap. “What about the other one?”

Keith tries to hide his smile, but isn’t sure he succeeds. He kisses Lance’s other eye and Lance sighs into it, pressing fractionally back, eyes drifting shut again.

“Better?” Keith asks when he finally pulls away and Lance sways as if to chase him and then catches himself, blinking dully.

“Yeah.”

Keith’s fingers find the new little pink scar on Lance’s cheekbone, another silver one from the last time Lance had saved him nestled beside it. He strokes them idly.

“These?” Keith’s hands are shaking and Lance’s head is bowed; not like he’s trying to hide but like his head is too heavy to hold and he’s trusting Keith to do it for him.

“Hurts,” he whispers.

“And this?” Keith’s fingers slip to the faint remnants of the bruise on Lance’s jaw.

“Yeah.” The word comes out wet and choked and Keith tries not to startle as nervous fingers, afraid to want, curl against his leg. They can’t find purchase in the pod suit Keith is wearing so he steps closer, pressing a kiss that lingers to first the new scar and then the old because he wants to, because he likes doing it.

He kisses the bruise on Lance’s jaw, lips warm and flush against Lance’s skin, making him shiver.

Something tickles over the seam where Keith’s fingers are pressing into Lance’s cheek and he pulls away, startled to see Lance crying.

Lance’s breath hiccups and Keith panics, darting a step back, eyes wide.

“What did I do?”

Lance shakes his head rapidly, scrubbing at the tears.

“Nothing,” he hurries to say, wishing Keith would come back. “You didn't do anything.” He stumbles on another hiccup, his expression crestfallen where he looks down at the floor, jaw working soundlessly.

“It’s just…” He swallows thickly. “It’s been a long time since anyone was this...tender with me, that’s all.” He flushes and Keith wants to trace the heat over the delicate crest of Lance’s ear.

“So you’re not- you’re not mad at me?”

Lance shakes his head fast enough to make himself dizzy. He can’t stop crying.

“Didn’t know how badly I needed it.” Lance sniffles, still wiping away tears that don’t want to stop. “Sorry. I don’t know why I’m crying.” His head is lowered with shame instead of trust and in spite of his trepidation Keith takes back the step he’d taken away from Lance, slipping between his knees where they hang over the table.

He runs his knuckles over Lance’s cheek, then the tips of his fingers over the shell of his still burning ear, trying to hide a smile before pulling Lance into a soft if somewhat awkward hug.

It gets better when Lance settles into it, fixing their angles and helping Keith find how they fit together.

“Thank you,” he whispers, the words pressed into Keith’s chest. “I needed this.”

Keith tilts his head, pressing his cheek into Lance’s hair where it crunches and Lance makes a little mew of pain. Keith smells fresh blood.

He pulls away and parts Lance’s hair, caked with blood and sees a small flash of white.

“Heh, would you believe I forgot about those?” Lance grimaces and Keith is horrified.

“Jesus, Lance these need stitches. And no I would not,” he snaps, dark eyebrows dropping into a scowl. “Fuck, you should be in a pod, not sitting here with me and this stupid handheld whatchamacallit.”

Keith snatches up the laser and pinches the skin of one of the five gashes back together, Lance whining in pain and curling around Keith as if that will alleviate it.

“Yeah well, you’re all I’ve got,” he grinds out. His fingers press into Keith’s hips, wincing but trying to hold still. His body is rigid and nothing like the gentle suppleness from before.

Blood runs along Lance’s scalp but the flow turns sluggish under the laser and bit by bit the wound begins to close. It’s hard to trace through the layers of dried blood and Lance’s hair but Keith does his best.  

“You’re gonna have to help me. I can’t see what I’m doing.”

“Got that one just fine,” Lance rasps, rigid beneath his fingers. The words are tight and he presses his forehead into Keith’s chest as if to run away from the pain while trying to hold still.

Keith lays one hand to the side of Lance’s face for a moment, trying to comfort.

“One down.”

Lance groans, whining, his hands sliding around to Keith’s lower back. “Four to go,” he grumbles back.

Lance pokes blindly through his hair, helping Keith locate the beginning of the next wound before tucking himself right back against Keith’s chest where he was before as if he belongs there.

“What happened?” Keith asks, trying to focus but it’s difficult. He’s been dying to know since the lights came on in the pod room but had been too afraid to ask.

Lance tries to hold still as Keith pinches the edges of the worst part together and makes another of those terrible noises.

“Soldier...raked his claws over my head,” Lance hisses. “Tried to pull me off when I was…” He shivers and Keith presses closer, trying to comfort even as his hands are busy.

“I didn’t realize they were this bad,” Lance whispers. “Head wounds always just seem worse than they are. I kind of stopped feeling them.”

“Kind of hard to catalogue under all the others?”

Lance goes to nod but thinks better of it. “Yeah.” He hesitates and Keith feels him run his thumb over his spine.

“Thanks. For helping.”

“Well I wasn’t gonna leave you in here to do it yourself,” he grumbles, mentally tracking the path of Lance’s thumb. “Especially not with the pods down.”

Lance is silent, his fingers still making little patterns over Keith’s back that are terribly distracting.  

“You could have.”

Keith frowns but doesn’t answer. He finishes closing the second gash before Lance speaks again.

“I’m not good at asking for help,” he admits, voice muffled against Keith’s chest. “No matter how badly I need it. I always feel like I’m being needy or bothering people. And yes, I know that sounds stupid but it doesn’t make it any easier.”

Keith pokes at the new scar, testing how fully healed it is before deeming it unsatisfactory and running the laser over it again.

“Thank you,” Keith says and Lance snorts.

“For what?”

It takes Keith a moment to find where he was, Lance’s reaction knocking his fingers loose from his hair before he’s settling back into a steady rhythm. “For letting me help.”

The tension in Lance’s shoulders eases just a bit. “You’re welcome.”

Keith finishes closing the lacerations, using the excuse to run his fingers through Lance’s matted hair, scratching gently along his scalp, looking for any remnant tenderness. He scratches at the clumps with his nails, shaking flakes of dried blood to the table.

“Better?” he asks eventually, but Keith would be lying if he said he wasn’t doing it just for the sake of contact. And because it’s making Lance relax. His head has grown heavy against Keith's chest and he likes it there.

“You wanna know a secret?” Lance asks instead, voice a soft mumble and Keith realizes he’s half asleep.

“Sure.”

Lance shifts about, his head on Keith’s shoulder so his face is pressed close to his throat.

“If ‘m talkin’...’bout my paper cuts like it’s the end of the world,” he says slowly, eyes drifting shut.  “‘m fine.” Keith can hear the smile in his voice as Lance nuzzles closer.

“Bein’...drama queen.” His voice slurs with sleep. “It’s the quiet ones you have to worry about.” Keith lets his hand slip from Lance’s hair to his back, holding him loosely.

“Quiet ones?”

“Mmhmm.” Lance nods shallowly. “Not really hurt unless ’m quiet,” he admits.

Keith hums thoughtfully, hand stroking up and down Lance’s back. “I’ll remember that.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sooooo things may have gotten spicy in the next part of Brawler Universe. I haven’t gone back to edit it but I’m assuming no one would be mad if things got spicy?


End file.
